


Family

by hatebeat



Series: Putting the gears in motion [22]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatebeat/pseuds/hatebeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connecticut, 1987. Nathan Explosion never particularly wanted to join a gang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family

1.

Nathan Explosion never particularly wanted to join a gang. It wasn't like he went out looking for it or something. But that kid from school, he'd been really threatening. It wasn't like he was the only one- he was just the loudest, the most physical about it. And when he challenged Nathan to meet him in the park after school, Nathan wasn't about to pussy out, even if that kid was nearly a head taller than him.

It was just, when Nathan showed up there, he wasn't the only one around, and neither was that guy. But regardless of who was present, they were the only two whose fists were involved. Not just fists, either. Nathan scrambled to palm a rough, pointed rock from the cracked pavement, and even when the guy got him flat on his back, Nathan had it in his hand, point stuck out between his knuckles, and ready to slash across his face. 

Nathan didn't quit until that guy was left a bloody, exhausted heap on the pavement; it wasn't that Nathan took pity on him, but the voice of someone else took his mind away from the pathetic, bloody lump his fists were raining punches over. 

"You're better than that trash."

Nathan paused. He looked up. It was true and he knew it, but he had never heard it before, not out loud. Never from anybody else. 

"Stick with us- I can help you prove it.'"

Nathan had never planned to join a gang, but nobody else had ever come into his life before and believed he was anything but stupid.

 

2.

Initiation wasn't supposed to be fun, not for anyone involved. Maybe it was a little bit funny to those who had already gone through it, but Nathan wouldn't find out about that until later (as it turned out, Nathan never really thought it was very funny later on, either).

It didn't make sense to him that in order to join them, he had to let them beat the shit out of him, but what made even less sense to him was the prospect of not fighting back. Luckily, they took care of that with a pair of handcuffs around his wrists- the real deal. Someone had swiped them from a cop they'd bloodied up pretty bad. Nathan strained against them while they bloodied him up, too. They didn't give, and the ache in his wrists afterward was nothing compared to what they'd done to the rest of him.

Everything about it hurt; it was supposed to. But it was almost worth it to endure in order to finally be accepted. To finally not be a freak. To finally not be _stupid_.

To finally be worth _something_.

Later, bruised and bloody and with a chip in one of his front teeth, Nathan vowed never to let anyone's fist get so close to his face ever again.

 

3.

Gang meant family. He learned that quickly. Somehow, he'd had slightly higher expectations of what that meant than what it really did, but at the very least, they had his back, and he had theirs. 

Even if that meant helping to break into a store at three am owned by the nice old lady who smiled at him kindly when he went to get a snack after school. Even if that meant carrying drugs in his pockets and worrying about when and where he was going to get caught. Even if that meant turning a blind eye to what they did to the cute, blonde girl that lived at the end of his street. 

Jay and Cutter and Fish and Green and all the others were his family, and when anyone threatened Nathan Explosion, that person threatened all of them.

You didn't just fuck with Nathan Explosion, because if you did, you were fucking with Nathan Explosion's family. And if you did that, you were probably going to die.


End file.
